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THE 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



SENATUS ACADEMICUS 



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WEDKESDAY, JUNE 28, 1865, 



BY 



JOHE" B. KEBFOOT, D. D. 
PRESIDENT. 






Printed by order of the Corporation. 



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i HARTFORD: 
PRESS OF CASE, LOCKWOOD AND COMPANY. 

1865. 



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NOTE. 

The Rev. John B. Kerfoot, D. D., was inaugurated President 
of Trinity College, at Christ Church, Hartford, on "Wednesday, 
June 28th, 1865. At three o'clock P. M., the Academic Body, 
with invited guests, assembled at the Chapel of Christ Church 
and went in procession to the Church, under the direction of J. J. 
McCook, B. A., assisted by the College Marshal, Charles Wanzer, 
and his aids. The following was the 

OEDEE OF EXEEOISES. 

1. Prayers. 

2. Installation of the President Elect, by the Rt. Rev., the 

Chancellor. 

3. Response by the President. 

MUSIC. 

4. Address to the President, from the Faculty, 

By Professor J. Brocklesby, M. A. 

5. Address to the President, from the Alumni, 

By the Hon. W. E. Curtis, LL. D. 

6. Address to the President, (in Latin,) from the Students, 

By Charles Tyler Olmsted. 

7. Address to the President, from the Citizens of Hartford, 

By the Hon. Henry Barnard, LL. D. 



MUSIC. 

8. Discourse by the President. 

OLD HUNDREDTH. 

From all that dwell below the skies, 
Let the Creator's praise arise ; 
Jehovah's glorious Name be sung 
Through every land, by every tongue. 

Eternal are thy mercies. Lord, 

And truth eternal is thy word ; 

Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore 

Till suns shall rise and set no more. 

9. Benediction by the Rt. Rev., the Chancellor. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



My theme is the Christian College. The topic 
is a practical one; and such shall its discussion be. 
We have met to perform an act which has a real, living 
significance, — otherwise men of real purpose would 
omit such an occasion. A civil corporation elects to 
the Presidency of its academic work one to whom in 
the name of that corporate authority, the Bishop of 
the Diocese, as such, as President of the Board, and 
as Chancellor of the College, commits the emblems 
of trust and office, as months ago he committed their 
substance. The act is a grave one, and is meant to 
bring out to our view and to impress upon our con- 
sciences the significance of the trust. That trust is 
the chief care of a college ; which, as the word signi- 
fies, gathers together Professors and Students for the 
purpose of mental and moral culture ; of a Christian 
College, marked by its most holy name ; for surely 
no one should divorce religion from education. 
Always wrong and well nigh impossible as such di- 



6 

vorce would be in any place and part of education, 
it would be a needless mistake and an unprofitable 
wrong in a the College." We look around us and see 
that such divorce is never really accomplished nor 
meant. No one can overlook this fact, or wish it other- 
wise. Thus, too, are kindly feelings, generous char- 
ity, and full liberty of conscience the most amply 
promoted. A College may and ought to open its 
doors to all who bring zeal, good morals and rever- 
ence with them. But it owes to its Collegiate charge 
the distinct lessons and the loving care of that corpo- 
rate Body which a Power, higher than the civil, cre- 
ates ; with trusts, duties and authority of a distinct 
sort; — a kingdom in this world, but not of it; its laws 
of morals, — the revealed will of God and of Christ ; 
with its science of sacred truths defined from the 
first, unchanged by the ages past, unchangeable for 
the ages to come ! 

But what is a College ? The word has many 
other uses, past and present, than the one to which 
our acts to-day restrict it. By the word, we now 
mean — a single community ; a society of Professors and 
Students ; organized under rules and devoting its daily 
tasks to mental discipline and acquirement; a school of 
learning in a home of its own. To go no further back 
in sacred or profane chronicles, — we know that the 
Cathedral or Conventual Schools or Colleges, as 



early as in the sixth century, were the homes of 
learning and of scholars ; somewhat as our Colleges 
now are. These schools preceded the later and 
grander growth of the Universities, and they were, 
by their very origin, Ecclesiastical Colleges. In them 
were provided the only teachers and the only quiet 
homes for learners. Sometimes these Colleges would 
enlarge the scope of their teaching beyond the 
elements or specialties to which they usually con- 
fined their work ; and thus they anticipated in 
part the University. Still, the University must in 
strictness be regarded as preceding the College as we 
have it. In the eleventh and following centuries, 
learned men and eloquent lecturers began to draw 
around them large bodies of listeners and disciples. 
Not only great cities like Paris, but smaller and then 
obscure places like Oxford and Cambridge, would be 
made the seats of such work. The numbers and 
continuance of the throngs would depend on the fame 
of the lecturers. Gradually provision was made to 
secure permanency in such enterprises. Many of the 
students would be poor, most were far from their 
homes. Pious liberality devised and provided Colleges 
as their homes in such Universities. The College 
was not originally the place of instruction, but of 
shelter and care. Its officers were not teachers, but 
guardians of the young inmates. These went to the 



8 

lectures of the University and came back to their 
College, as to their home. Gradually this was 
changed, especially in England. The heads and offi- 
cers of the College came to busy themselves in the 
preparations of their wards for the public tasks and 
examinations of the University ; for these officers of 
the College would generally be men trained in the 
University and thus competent to instruct others ; 
the right and the duty to teach being the very mean- 
ing of the titles of Master and Doctor, Thus the Col- 
leges, ceasing to be merely homes for students, would 
begin to rival one another as schools of learning too ; 
and their advantages would be largely sought by the 
wealthy as well as by the indigent. The gifts and 
the names of pious founders or benefactors would ini- 
tiate a dignity which later ambition and beneficence 
would promote. Riches and learning gathered to the 
College many privileges. Thus the original province 
of the University was encroached upon. Lectures 
and lessons were provided at home, in the Colleges, 
and the University would find its work gradually nar- 
rowed, and its laws and governors appointed by the 
Colleges. Thus we see now that the two great Uni- 
versities of England are really but confederations of 
their Colleges. These are no longer the homes of so 
many of the attendants on University lessons, but are 
themselves academic schools, and together they make 



9 

up the University. This is not the case, however, in 
the other British Universities ; all which with, I 
think, but one exception (Aberdeen,) are single 
Corporations or Colleges, with extended provisions 
for instruction. There are besides in England aca- 
demic Institutions, known as Colleges, — out of the 
Universities, — those old well endowed schools (as 
Eton and Harrow,) in which the boy has time to 
complete his boyhood, — in a course of mental and 
physical discipline which the American College cur- 
riculum seldom exacts. 

The German Universities are much more like the 
original ones, eight centuries ago. The lectures of 
Professors bring disciples together in the University ; 
separate College homes, instructions and care are pro- 
vided only in the preparatory gymnasium, and are 
not part of the plan of the German University. The 
American College, though the direct offspring of the 
English College and in many respects like the parent, 
has marked peculiarities. As a home, it is much less 
collegiate than the English College; as a school, it aims 
at more of the University. The early immigrants into 
our western world would bring with them English 
ideas, in this as in other things ; and as many of them 
were educated men, they would found Colleges in 
our then new land. There would be, at first, but a 
meagre supply of instructors, but often a measure 
2 



10 

of talent, acquirement and zeal to which we may now 
look back with reverence and longing. Our Col- 
leges in their proper work as schools, cover the 
ground belonging to "the Faculty of Arts" — the old 
Trivium and Quadrivium, answering to our present 
under-graduate course. Some thirteen centuries ago, 
it seems that all this, though explaining the seven 
sciences, could be put into some thirty folio pages ! 
"Would that I had lived then," may some of the 
collegians of this day cry out, when they think of 
the books and lectures, tedious and many, through 
which Masters and Doctors now-a-days make the 
Student's trivium of language and thought, and his 
quadrivium of science to run ; and it is due to the 
memory of the old Professors of Mathematics to say 
that they, more merciful than their successors, 
enlivened the abstruseness and dullness of their lec- 
tures by lessons in music as well as in geometry. 

The University now, as the term probably sig- 
nifies, brings all the chief departments of study into 
its compass. It has, outside of the Faculty of arts, 
its various schools in the Sciences on which the chief 
professions and pursuits of life are founded. These 
schools are sometimes called Colleges, by a correct, 
yet not the original use of the word; but under 
whatever name, each school has its own science to 
teach, Theology, Law, Medicine, or other special 



11 

division of the post-graduate, professional study. 
Thus among us, the College begets, or becomes, the Uni- 
versity, reversing the process of its own early origin. 
For the charter of the American College generally 
empowers it to establish such special, higher schools, 
in more or less proximity and subjection to the orig- 
inal body. Or such special schools may be instituted 
apart from the College ; and either plan may be 
the right one, as circumstances and needs vary. In 
our country and time we meet and solve such prob- 
lems best, by interpreting occasions, rather than by 
conforming too much to mere precedents. The un- 
dergraduate work of the College is, however, one 
great enough, if well done, for any one's ambition 
and zeal ; and that, as yet, is the sole task of Trinity 
College, though she claims with high satisfaction 
the parentage of a school of theology upon which 
her students look with honest, affectionate pride, 
and to which not a few of them turn their eager 
steps from year to year. What further develop- 
ments our College is to have, time must show. Thus 
far, all of our duty here is found in the College, 
as the academic home of the undergraduate ; to the 
College therefore let our special thought be now given ; 
and we may perhaps be aided by the facts stated, to 
see in the light of the past as well as of the present, 



12 

what the College is bound to attempt as its proper 
functions ; and how its work can be best done. 

Of course, the first work, that for which the Col- 
lege is established, is the intellectual culture of its mem- 
bers. Not that this is or can be its sole aim or result, 
or its highest, noblest attainment. But this is its 
direct design; the end first and always proposed. 
Other great aims, other vast results are to be kept 
in view ; for, for good or for evil, they will be effect- 
ed in a College. But all other aims are incidental, 
attendant on this one aim of mental discipline and 
acquirement. But for this pledge, the opportunity 
could not be had to seek the other good results. 
The College offers to discipline and furnish the mind, 
and this it must do well and fully up to the means 
and demands of the time, or it will not, and it ought 
not, gather its company of disciples into its lecture 
and class rooms. The law of success in our work as a 
College is fully recognized to be excellence in its scholar- 
ship and power of thought; for these are the real tests of 
good academic training. This genuine work does 
not, however, exclude, it solicits the hallowing 
power of moral and religious principle. Mental 
gain is the poorer in measure and quality for being 
a godless gain. It would then profit the world and the 
graduate but little, for the world cannot live and be 
happy out of brains alone. Still, the College makes 



13 

this work of mental discipline and culture, its spe- 
cial, peculiar end. We so recognize it. 

To reach this end, we can devise no new way. The 
old means, modified enough, perhaps too much, by 
modern notions, seem still the best means. We 
have in view now what men so kindly call a fin- 
ished preparatory education for the gentleman, or for 
the study of any profession. The old course and 
topics with their lessons and lectures are the best 
means still. The Latin and Greek classics, the Math- 
ematics, abstract and applied, the Philosophy of ab- 
stract thought and research into the principles of 
things, — all these as means of discipline even more 
than of mere knowledge \ — such still, as of old, — must 
the College work be. It is not asserted that it is best 
for all young men to pursue the full course. The lim- 
its of time, means, capacities and destination, must 
govern individual cases. But were these the only 
restrictions regarded, our colleges would contain 
many who by indolence, impatience, or the mistaken 
views of themselves or their guides, are now kept 
from the accomplishment of this thorough course 
of study and thought ; one that is never too long or 
severe for any man who would set out in life with 
a preparation that makes intelligence, self- culture 
and further attainment in any special pursuit, an easy 
thing for him from the very start. In this full col- 



14 

legiate course, then, we recognize these great depart- 
ments of study, the old ones, the very same that 
have been in spirit and effect the life of this work 
in ages and lands far remote from our own. For 
convenience, we may divide into seven parts, our 
modern trivium and quadrivium, the under-graduate's 
work through which the four years of the College 
carry him. (1,) The classics of old Greece and Rome ; 
(2,) the exact sciences of magnitude and number, 
pure and mixed; (3,) the philosophy of the nature 
and laws of the mind and its researches; of the con- 
science of man, his relations and duties. — Then, flow- 
ing out of these, completing and applying them to 
the needs and circumstances of our day and coun- 
try ; (4,) the principles of civil government, of social 
and political life and progress; (5,) the diligent study 
of our own language and literature; (6,) the careful 
investigation of some of the parts of the vast king- 
dom of the physical and material world; and (7,) at 
least the elementary study of some of the modern 
tongues and their literature. 

Such a work, proposed for four years taken out of 
youth and early manhood, even after the best pre- 
liminary training that can be exacted from the can- 
didate for College, may well seem unduly great. 
Few accomplish it as they ought to do; but some do 
it, very fairly. It is not too much to lay out for 






15 

a young man of capacity, zeal, honorable ambition 
and conscience; and none others ever master the 
course fully. To do it, puts both the student and Pro- 
fessor to the stretch. We must not flag, or our class- 
es fall back farther even than the laggards and incom- 
petents every year tend to pull them. Blessings on 
the good, bright, habitual students and thinkers, to 
whom the Professor can always turn with assurance 
for a little refreshment for his sometimes parched 
and weary spirit! — But even the less talented, if 
they are only patiently laborious and honorably zeal- 
ous, gain much by this course ; more than they would 
by any less thorough and exacting one. The colle- 
giate quadriennium gives proof enough that indus- 
try shall make noble gain. Mind and conscience 
grow well by tasks of mind done dutifully, even 
without the stimulus of early marked success ; while 
quickness of mind, apart from daily zeal, never 
makes solid gain. Occasional easy success tempts to 
indolence, to self-delusion, to the fatal mistake that 
smartness and fluency may take the place of honor- 
able toil, and thus to real loss and to final failure. 
The course, on the whole, is none too hard. I would 
not make it any easier or any less; nor consent to 
much change, certainly not to the addition of any 
more topics of study; least of all to the omission of 



16 

any of the great departments that have all sanction 
and all experience in their favor. 

There can be no substitute for the Latin and Greek 
tongues and literature. The intelligence and refine- 
ment their study gives are vast gains ; without these 
the mind never can domesticate the men, the nations 
and the thoughts of the past among the things that it 
knows familiarly. So, too, the taste and the imagi- 
nation are cultivated, and the vocabulary of the man 
grows in abundance and exactness. But the great 
gains from this study are the power of clear accu- 
rate thought ; and the power of clear, accurate, free 
expression of thought in words. Those old authors 
never wrote nonsense ; they did have some clear no- 
tion, and they did express it well; though their puzzled 
young interpreter now does sometimes denounce 
them as both stupid and unintelligible. There is 
thought there ; and his work is first to get at it ; to 
get it out; and then to express it nicely, fully, ele- 
gantly. He cannot have the soul of a classic schol- 
ar awakened within him, till he learns to abhor 
words that express no thought, or that deform or 
strangle the thought in its new egress from his own 
mind. No exercise exclusively in our own tongue 
can give this discipline ; nor can any exercise in oth- 
er or modern languages so well accomplish it. There 
is no little peril in the disposition of some educa- 






17 

tors now to yield to mistaken popular clamor on 
this point. I say clamor, for I believe that the pop- 
ular preference and judgment are in favor of these 
ancient classical studies. It is, moreover, much to 
be regretted that such study has come generally now 
to make no regular part of the last year's course in 
College. Some of its best effects and of its highest 
satisfactions would come then to the maturing 
scholar from hours given to the literature of langua- 
ges, which had for him now ceased to be toil and 
mystery. At the least, one must long to see this more 
the choice than it is of the eclectic in our Senior 
year. Then our College-bred men would be more 
seldom mere une^oibyov, retailers of scraps, of trite 
phrases, when they venture to recur to classic 
thoughts or quotations. 

The mathematics, pure and mixed, have, in spite 
of earnest, and sometimes *notable hostility, secured 
a pretty sure place in collegiate work. They are 
essential parts of any true mental discipline. They 
tend, as one allows whose logic thrusts its twin-sister 
mathematics out of his favor, — to correct a certain 
vice and to form its corresponding virtue. "That 
vice is the habit of mental distraction, the virtue, the 
habit of continuous attention." The student de- 
frauds himself if he avoids the task of pure abstract 

*e. g. Sir Wm. Hamilton's (1) Discussion on Education. 

3 



18 

thinking which this study imposes. And it may be 
a mistake for the Colleges to compress, as they now 
too generally do, the pure mathematics into the first 
half of the course. Hasty and superficial labor here is 
labor lost, where labor well bestowed would bring in- 
valuable fruit. Bacon's words* stand unqualified by 
him, despite a great critic's effort to show a change of 
his judgment. "The excellent use of pure mathemat- 
ics [is,] that they do remedy and cure many defects in 
the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too 
dull, they sharpen it ; if too wandering, they fix it ; 
if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it." The 
due "subtlety," commended by the great thinker, 
must come from the study of the exact sciences as 
well as from that of the schoolmen's philosophy. 

The next of the three great departments of colle- 
giate culture is this very school philosophy, such as it 
has now become; more rational, we think, but not less 
acute ; a less grotesque but not less real and invigorat- 
ing gymnastic of the mind. Metaphysics are at 
once the terror and the sport of common sense, as 
some are apt to say. But men will think out the 
things that are mysterious. Philosophers of truth 
or of error, they will become ; for the philosopher (as 
Cicero describes him,)f is one, "Qui studeat om- 
nium rerum divinarum at que humanarum vim, 

* "Adv. of Learning," — works, ed. Montague, Vol. II., pp. 144-5. 
t"De Oratore," 1 : 49. 



19 

naturam causasque nosse, et omnem bene vivendi 
rationem tenere et persequi." In those mysteries of 
nature, of our own being, and of His being who made 
us, of His power and will to teach us, of the strange 
faculties of thought and sense which we possess and 
use, are not only hidden, but planted there for sure 
and necessary growth and development, the principles 
of knowledge, faith and duty, of all the truth that un- 
derlies the temporal and eternal good of man. To 
track out the wonderful pathway of the human mind in 
its many thinkings, through all the ages of our race ; 
to discern and appreciate its problems and solutions ; 
to learn how we know, why we are convinced, how 
we are to be wisely assured of the truth of facts and 
of belief, is the only process by which common sense 
can be vindicated, and faith justified, in the court of 
true reason. Thus subtle thought becomes a very 
practical thing ; while the other great acquisition is 
made, — the power of a clear analysis and abstrac- 
tion. In any man who has to share in the thinking 
of the day, in any Master or Doctor whom the Col- 
lege makes and sends out, and most truly in the the- 
ologian, — such serious subtlety is essential. More 
of it at the bar and in the pulpit would help to scat- 
ter some of the cloudy generalities and the misty 
delusions that beget weariness and errors in the listen- 
ers. The truthful study of what is within us, would 



20 

open the eyes of the man more fully to the truth 
without. The sacred image within, well discerned, 
would exhibit to reason and faith Him who makes 
man in His likeness. ec Nullus in microcosmo spiri- 
tus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus." * 

Therefore in no study, more than in morals, is such 
close, true search after principles, our need and our 
duty. Nothing is higher and holier than man's con- 
science; nothing truer than its voice. Nothing so 
binds us nobly in God's service, or leads us so right- 
eously and surely to Him. Therefore is no other 
study more practically momentous for ourselves and 
our neighbors/ False Ethics corrupt Society and its 
whole life ; while true morals can flow forth only 
from a sound philosophy ; and this can be begotten 
and maintained only by that honest subtlety that 
discerns truth and detects error in the principles of 
thought and belief. It is not therefore any partial- 
ity to my own share of academic instruction that 
makes me thus rank this study among its prime ele- 
ments. The metaphysics and ethics of the class-room 
are the nearest of kin to the doctrines and precepts 
of the Chapel. They must blend into one, to give 
the young scholar his right start into the great realm 
of truth that embraces the life and holiness of both 
worlds. 

* Dr. H. More, quoted by Hamilton. 



21 

The four other divisions of Collegiate teaching, 
(4) Political Philosophy, (5) our own Language and 
Literature, (6) the wonders of Physical Science meet- 
ing us every dr *, and which only the informed and 
observing mind can note and enjoy, as well as use, 
and, (7) some real beginning of a knowledge of the 
tongues and books of other races mingling with our 
own, — need no defence in our day. All that can be 
done for them in the college must be elementary ; 
but even their elements are invaluable at the outset 
of life to the student and the worker. Let me sum up 
in some more of the well known words of Bacon, (Es- 
say 50th) ; "Histories make men wise ; poets witty ; 
mathemathics subtle ; natural philosophy deep ; 
moral grave ; logic and rhetoric, able to contend ; 
"Abeunt studia in mores ; " nay there is no stond or 
impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by 
fit studies." — Or, to give voice to some undergradu- 
ate, who if he listens, may be growing uneasy about all 
this hard work ahead of him, — there are merry 
words at hand, which without much diversion from 
their proper intent, may be used to tell out some of 
his real thoughts — 

" Gentle master mine, 

I am all affected as yourself; 

Glad that you thus continue your resolve 

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. 



22 

Only, good master, while we do admire 

This virtue, and this moral discipline, 

Let's be no stoicks, — nor no stocks, I pray ; 

Or so devote to Aristotle's checks, (ethicks) 

As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured ; 

Talk logick with acquaintance that you have, 

And practise rhetorick in your common talk ; 

Music and poesy use to quicken you ; 

The mathematicks, and the metaphysicks, 

Fall to them, as you find your stomach serves you ; 

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en ; — 

In brief, Sir, study what you most affect"* 

— Here, even in the outline of the jester, we see 
the intellectual work to be done. The promise of 
this brings its disciples to the College. But to the 
earnest spirit there is a yet higher work discernible. 
Throughout and around all the work first promised, 
there must be the distinct inculcation, the living 
power, the loving influence of revealed religion. Its 
doctrines, its precepts, its hallowing morals must per- 
meate our work. Duty and necessity, alike, demand 
this. The mind stimulated in all else, we dare not 
leave torpid here ; or self-sufficient, haughty unbelief 
will come in. Nothing bears, nothing requires more 
earnest study than truth and duty as they are re- 
vealed in Christ, and set forth by His Church. The 
young thinker must not be left to suppose that re- 
vealed truth and duty are less of a science, less worthy 
of study early and late, less able to bear research, 
than any topic of secular name; or less entitled to 

* Shakspeare, Taming of the Shrew, 1:1. 



23 

his reverent, zealous thought. The Lord's Prayer, 
the Creed, and the Ten Commandments — the Col- 
lege must not ignore them ; nor give them only some 
low, out-of-the-way place. She must herself rever- 
ence them, and enthrone them in the understanding, 
the heart, the conscience and the reason of her dis- 
ciples. The faith unchanged and unchangeable, is to 
be made known as the highest, noblest, most endur- 
ing heritage of our race. The pure morals of Christ 
must be the supreme law of the College and of young 
life in the College, as well as of later life beyond 
it. The penitence and faith that bring men to 
Christ, must be made great realities. The inscruta- 
ble work of the Holy Spirit, giving the light and 
strength which can come from no one but that Spirit, 
must be taught to the young man as well as to the 
mature man. I have no patience with the notion 
that the four years of College life are to be cut out 
from all the years before and after them, as years of 
irresponsible indolence or license touching what the 
man is to believe and to do, — the faith and the mor- 
als of the Christian gentleman. It is as an educa- 
tor, not less than as a minister of Christ, that I feel and 
speak thus; nor is it by way of theory, but from expe- 
rience. No grace or beauty of honor, morals or holi- 
ness can adorn the earlier youth or the maturer life, 
that may not and does not find noble illustrations in 



24 

many a manly Christian Collegian. The real, genu- 
ine honor of the gentleman, the sacred regard for 
truth in all that is said or done to any around ; the 
manly reverence for law and order; the genuine 
courtesy that loves to think of another's feelings 
and rights as well as of one's own, and that makes 
peace and comfort in all the circle of neighbors; 
the refined, gentle bearing; the noblemindedness, 
the warm-heartedness, the pure chastity, the high 
tone and sense of right ; the firm self-respect so beau- 
tified by modesty; in a word the Gentleman, the 
Christian gentleman, is the right model, and the prac- 
ticable and bounden model in College as well as after- 
wards. It would much elevate the actual state of 
things in our Colleges, if this ideal were accepted 
and believed in by all who have a word or an influence 
to contribute to College life. Nobler specimens of 
manhood and of religion than I have seen in College 
life, than we think we can show among us here, I 
have yet to find in mature life. I have long since 
ceased to think the gentleman and the christian, the 
exclusive or the preeminent honor of two score years, 
or more. One score of years and thereabouts, 
amid the elevating influences of the christian Col- 
lege, may show a manhood so strong and beautiful 
in all that is generous and true, that years of expe- 
rience can add but little to its dignity. And it is 



25 

thus I would conceive of the young man, of what he 
may and ought to be in College. It is wronging him 
to hold up before him, or before one's self as the best 
we dare hope for, any meaner standard ; even a worse 
wrong this than another, yet very real wrong — to be 
impatient with his immaturity, to expect in him the 
self-restraint that we find years bring to ourselves 
but imperfectly; to despair of his becoming in time, 
at least equal to his elders, who, the better they 
really are, all the more feel their own deficiencies, and 
sympathize in his struggles. But they ought there- 
fore to believe in his capacity and responsibility ; 
and expect of him, and incite him to such noble 
struggles after real good. To do this, to have the 
opportunity to do it, to be the Teacher and Pastor 
of young men in College, is a work any man may 
deem ample satisfaction for his ambition, for his con- 
science and his heart. For every such teacher ought 
to be in his best measure and way, a Pastor, too. 
The College idea is radically defective without this 
element of pastoral care. Without it, to me, the 
idea would be barren of every real satisfaction. The 
Professor, the College officer of any grade, whose 
heart does not yearn to promote the comfort, the 
worth, the moral and religious good of his charge, 
omits from his daily life that principle of charity 
which will enrich his own heart and bring home its 



26 

abundant recompense even now, while it spreads 
glad fruitfulness all around him. Thus may we 
work towards a noble result; though like all the good 
results of human effort, this one too, true enough, 
keeps always just ahead of our full grasp. For the 
College-life of the undergraduate, like all life, must 
have its perils, its delays and its disappointments. 
Many will falter, some will fall amid these perils. 
We can do good to all; — we can help, or even 
save, many. The knowledge of the world's wick- 
edness must come to all, in one time and way 
or another. With it come delusions and entice- 
ments full of peril. But very much may be done 
by the friendly warning, the encouragement, the 
suggestion of pure motives, the upright example, the 
precept and promise of religion, which the Pastor 
and Teacher may offer as the College days and 
years run by. Never indifferent to changes in char- 
acter, but never despairing because of signs of evil ; 
trustful in the manhood which the Son of Man has 
arrested in its downward course and which His Spirit 
never quite forsakes; patient, unselfish and prayer- 
ful ; speaking the truth in love even amid the heed- 
less and the opposing ; hopeful from the experiences 
of success which years will lay up for him, and still 
more from the faith he has in God's promises, 
— the Professor, the Friend, the pastor in the Col- 



27 

lege, is of the very essence of its life; he has a 
work to do not less ample in its requitals than in its 
tasks and trials. Such a work we all have under- 
taken here, my brother Professors ; at the bidding of 
our Bishop and Chancellor, and of the Corporate 
authorities of our College ; — for and among you, our 
disciples. Such a belief gives power and easy action 
to the whole College life. It makes the work easier, I 
say, for us all; and the fruits more abundant and 
enduring. 

In the presence of many once in our College, — 
still and always of it, as their company and sympa- 
thy here to-day prove; recalling the history of 
the years of other men's patience and hope ; in this 
day of renewed confidence and encouragement, we 
ask the Triune God to make us and our College more 
worthy of His great Name ; — we renew its dedica- 
tion, and our own, to His honor and service ; and in 
the assurance of His favor, we press on gladly and 
boldly in Christ's name. 



2s tiuvib, aii ivloyG), as dot-d^w diti. xov duwvlov dcgxisge'cog ' Irjcrov 
Xqlutov, tov &ycc7tT]Tov aov noudog, dl ov gov ai>v dvrio hv Ttvevfiati, 
dyla dd^a xal vvv xal elg wdg /uiXXovjocg dmvag, 'A(itf\v. 

Doxology at end of the prayer of S. Poly carp "jam mar- 
tyrium subituri," Euseb. Ecc. Hist. IV, 15 ; as quoted by Bp. 
Bull, Def. Nic. Fid.— works, vol. 5, p. 149. 



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